Digital Contesting

In between thunderstorms, grad parties, and spending time outside I played around in the ARRL International Digital contest over the weekend.

This was my first digital contest, so I was not sure what to expect. Would the bands be jam-packed like they are for big SSB contests, with elite contest crews scattered to locations around the world that offer advantageous propagation? Or would it be an afterthought?

In my experience, it was much closer to the latter. There just weren’t a ton of stations operating. I kept coming across the same handful of callsigns each day, across all the bands. When I flipped back to the traditional FT8 frequencies, those bands seemed to be hopping with plenty of POTA, special events, and standard stations. Folks not aware of the contest or just not interested in it?

That made for pretty open conditions in the contest frequencies. I got off to a fine start Saturday, racking up 98 QSOs in fairly limited operation time. Sunday was slower and I ended up with 132 QSOs from 16 DX entities for 802 points.

I found it strange how few DX stations were on the bands, at least early on. 51 of my first 52 contacts were from US or Canadian stations. Only six European contacts all weekend. Some of that is propagation based, but I saw many more Euros when scanning through the regular FT8 frequencies.

I enjoy contesting not to compete, but to test and refine my operating skills and take advantage of the greater number of stations on the air. This weekend’s contest offered some of that, but not nearly the thrill of the SSB contests I’ve participated in. Basically like any FT8 vs phone experience.

The week ahead has lightning in the forecast nearly every day, which does not bode well for having the antenna connected to the shack, let alone doing much operating.